According to a recent 2013 report by the Pew Hispanic center, US Latinos are more likely to access the internet through mobile devices than Caucasian Non-Hispanic Americans and African Americans.* While the Hispanic community may have previously been thought of as behind the times technologically in the past, this is no longer the case. In many cases, areas where technological use within the US Hispanic market may have seen a greater divide in ownership and usage, we are now in a new technological awakening for the American Latino. In the same Pew Hispanic Center report, the percentage of Hispanic internet users is up by 14% over the past two years.*
Our own analytics with the EC Hispanic Media properties have also reflected this. Our traffic to elclasificado.com in terms of unique visitors, visits, and total page views has continually grown monthly by 40-60% year over year for the past three years. What’s more, while we have seen increases in direct traffic, our own efforts with SEO and other forms of online marketing have primarily driven our growth accounting for 80% of all visits to the site. As a result of this growth, elclasificado.com is now one of the top 6,000 websites in the United States and we continue to expect to see greater growth across the country with newly created marketing opportunities to enhance the overall user experience.
To perhaps further enforce the Pew Hispanic Center’s findings we too have noticed increases in overall mobile visits across the board for elclasificado.com. Current visits directed from mobile traffic was up to nearly 60% in August from 40% during the same time last year and mobile users were also more engaged with site, viewing more than twice the average page views of visitors coming from desktop computers.
As a result, we have adjusted many of our current marketing approaches to account for the increase in mobile use within the Hispanic community. We are offering mobile advertising campaigns to target our mobile responsive sites. We have ensured customers that have EC Hispanic Media hosted microsites are all using a mobile responsive template to improve user experience. And we have also made it easier for companies and individuals to post classified ads on elclasificado.com by creating a more mobile friendly ad placement process. This has led to increases in the total amount of ads that we are seeing placed from mobile phones and with the greater amount of content we are seeing, we expect to see greater amounts of traffic to the site overall.
Ultimately, our improvement in making our properties more mobile friendly is a major, if not THE major, driving force behind some of our greatest improvements in the digital world. As the US Hispanic market further moves towards mobile products, creating an improved user experience is key to be able to reach Latinos online.
* PewResearch Hispanic Trends Project “Closing the Digital Divide: Latinos and Technology Adoption“
